The technology disclosed in this patent document relates to a sterilizer, including a fluid sterilizer and an associated connecting device.
Due to the recent concern about water pollution caused by environmental contamination, the demand for a water purifier has increased. There are various kinds of water purifiers available, such as a natural filtration water purifier, a direct-connection filtration water purifier, an ion-exchange resin water purifier, a distillation water purifier, a reverse osmosis water purifier and others, according to the water purification techniques or processes used for water purification.
Recently, there have emerged water purifiers which directly sterilize water using ultraviolet (UV) light. Many conventional water purifiers using UV light use an underwater UV light source. Such a conventional water purifier, in one example, fills a container with water to be sterilized, and turn on a UV light source dipped or submerged in the water to sterilize the water. The conventional water purifier has advantages in that the installation can be completed by dipping or submerging the UV light source in the container filled with the water, the equipment can be reduced in size, and the installation cost can be saved. However, the conventional water purifier may require a considerable reaction time for irradiating UV light to sterilize water, or may not uniformly sterilize all the water in the container.
One example of such a conventional water purifier using UV light is disclosed in Korean Patent Publication No. 2012-0134809 and entitled “Water purifier”.